


Tabby

by Ladybug_21



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Cats, Excessive Amounts of Angst, F/F, Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Upon retreating to Broadchurch, Jocelyn unexpectedly finds herself sharing a cat with Maggie—and, consequently, sharing Maggie with Lil.
Relationships: Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe, Maggie Radcliffe/Lil Ryan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 50





	Tabby

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I own no rights to _Broadchurch_.

In many ways, Jocelyn was truly grateful that she hadn't had to move house in decades. But as she stood in the middle of her new living room, staring at all of the cardboard boxes stacked neatly on top of each other, the barrister heaved a sigh. Surely, one could only accumulate so many belongings through staying in one place for as long as she had? She'd gotten rid of her fair share of unnecessary clutter as she'd packed up her flat in London, too—these boxes contained her essentials, ostensibly, and that alone was overwhelming. Jocelyn thrived when things were sensible and orderly and at least somewhat familiar, and she didn't have a clue how to begin managing the utter chaos surrounding her.

A knock on her front door shook her from her momentary paralysis, and Jocelyn turned and answered it.

"Maggie bloody Radcliffe," she smiled, when she saw who it was.

"You could've mentioned that you were coming back permanently, you know," the journalist replied crossly, shaking her head.

"I would have told you," Jocelyn insisted, wondering for a wild moment if there was any point in trying to shield Maggie's view from the clutter of boxes behind her. "Just, I didn't really tell _anyone_."

"And yet, here you are." After a moment, Maggie's expression softened, and she quirked a smile at Jocelyn. "Heard through the grapevine that you'd bought the place, so, when I saw the movers parked outside, I thought I'd wander over and see how I could help."

"Oh, there's no need," Jocelyn blushed.

"Nonsense," snorted Maggie, "look at all of these boxes behind you, it'll take you ages to handle all of that yourself! Tell you what, let me at least help you move boxes into the right rooms; that way, you'll only have to do half of the heavy lifting, and I won't need to rudely rummage through your personal items, how's that?"

Maggie had taken a stance that didn't leave much room for argument, so Jocelyn suppressed a smile and let her through the door.

"I can't stay for more than an hour," Maggie warned. "But I'd wager we can get some real work done here, first. Right, utensils in the kitchen, I assume?"

It had been years since Jocelyn had spent this much sustained time in Maggie's presence; most of their interactions over the past decade had been quick hellos at street corners, when Jocelyn was back visiting for holidays or for her mum's birthday. As they moved between rooms and up and down the stairs, Maggie kept up a constant stream of conversation that made Jocelyn smile more than she had since her decision to move back to Broadchurch. Even if Maggie hadn't said a word, though, the time would have flown by so much more quickly just for her being there. Jocelyn, setting down a box in the prospective guest room, smiled as she heard Maggie continuing to narrate part of a story to her from halfway across the house, confident that Jocelyn would still be listening.

"One of these is a future home office, I assume?" the journalist asked. "Lots of room for filing cabinets and such."

With an _oof,_ Jocelyn set down the heavy box of clothes that she was hauling up the stairs and straightened. Maggie was gesturing to two of the doors just off the landing. Jocelyn scowled.

"What is this, an interview for one of your articles?" she deflected, more harshly than she'd intended. The smile on Maggie's face flickered, and Jocelyn kicked herself internally. "I haven't decided yet," she lied, knowing that there would be no need for a home office.

Maggie seemed to have recovered, and she glanced down at the large box that Jocelyn was trying to pick back up.

"Here, let me help you with that," she offered, and the two women managed to get the box up the rest of the stairs and down the hall into Jocelyn's future bedroom, without either straining anything.

"Wow, look at that view!" Maggie gasped, moving around Jocelyn's stripped bed to peer out the window. "Even more remarkable from up here than from downstairs. I have to confess, Jocelyn, I was somewhat surprised when I heard that you were moving back, even with your mum being here and all—and especially into this place, which is an awful lot of upkeep for just one person. But, you really can't get a view like this in London."

Jocelyn gazed at Maggie, arms akimbo as she took in the ocean, silhouetted against the late afternoon sunlight, her shadow cutting a sharp edge across the white of Jocelyn's mattress. And something surged within Jocelyn, something that she thought she'd managed to suppress completely some twelve years ago. Because, now that she'd left London and the strictures of its legal community, now that she was stuck back in her childhood town for the rest of her life, wasn't it a moment to reinvent herself? Even if her sight was failing, wasn't it an opportunity of sorts to trust that love was equally blind, and to finally tell Maggie what she should have told her all those years ago? The barrister drank in the sight of Maggie, who had arrived completely uninvited to help Jocelyn return to Broadchurch. And Jocelyn's heart pounded as she considered that, if she managed to be as brave as she needed to be in the next few moments, then this might not be the last time she would ever see Maggie framed in her bedroom window, unabashedly taking up space in the most intimate parts of Jocelyn's life...

"Maggie," Jocelyn said.

Maggie turned with a "Hmm?" and Jocelyn steeled herself. But as she opened her mouth again, Maggie's mobile rang, and when the journalist glanced down at the screen, she sighed.

"Sorry, need to take this, I'll be right back," she told Jocelyn as she moved out into the hallway and answered her phone. "Hello, petal, everything all right? Yeah, reservation is still at six, but I can meet you there earlier, if you're off work already? At a friend's right now, but I'll head over soon. Oh, and I picked up more dish soap earlier today, so don't waste your time going on a search for more, between now and then. Right, mmhm, see you there."

By the time Maggie had reappeared at Jocelyn's bedroom door, the barrister had taken a seat on the edge of her bed and was staring at the floor, quietly stuffing all of her hopes and desires back into the airtight box of emotions where she usually kept them sealed. Maggie leaned against the door frame, arms crossed.

"Have to head out sometime soon," she said, almost apologetically. "Anything else that you need help moving all the way up here, before tonight?"

Jocelyn shook her head. She knew that Maggie might swing by tomorrow, to help move more boxes—if she knew one thing about the journalist, it was that she liked to see a job through properly. But it pained her to know that Maggie was asking because, by tomorrow, this room truly would be Jocelyn's, sheets in use, blankets pulled from boxes, clothes scattered throughout the dressers; and Maggie wasn't about to waltz into the bedroom, once Jocelyn had actually started sleeping there and it no longer was a safe and neutral and impersonal space. Although there were a few more boxes to be moved, Jocelyn could handle them on her own, without Maggie.

"Jocelyn?" Maggie leaned forward just a touch more, to peer at the barrister. "Is everything all right, petal?"

And what could Jocelyn say? Because it certainly wasn't Maggie's fault that she'd found someone else and was living with her and taking her out to dinner and sending her on errands for more dish soap. In fact, Jocelyn would think that the world had gone utterly mad, if someone as completely deserving of love and adoration as Maggie was, somehow lacked another person to provide it. And Maggie didn't even _know_ that Jocelyn had been quietly in love with her for well over a decade now, because Jocelyn was a coward and had never said so. So what good would it do to say anything now, when Maggie was happy and Jocelyn was no worse off than she had been when she arrived in Broadchurch?

"The view," she said instead, brushing her hand across her face, still not looking at Maggie. "I'm glad you're able to enjoy it. I... I can't. I'm going blind."

Maggie's expression had shifted from slightly regretful to completely concerned, and she moved across the room and sat down on the bed next to Jocelyn as Jocelyn buried her face in her hands, weeping for her failing sight but for so much more, besides.

"I'm so sorry, petal," she murmured, one hand pressing soothing circles into Jocelyn's back. "Is there anything I can do? Is that why you came back?"

Jocelyn wasn't sure whether to shake her head to the first question or nod to the second, so instead she took a few deep breaths to try to get herself under control. Maggie wrapped her arm around Jocelyn's shoulders.

"But you're not giving up practice, are you?" she asked. "You can still take briefs from here, I'm sure there's software that can help..."

"What's the use?" Jocelyn sighed. "So much of our work is still paper-based anyway, I'd practically need someone to sit around reading to me all day long. The point is, I wouldn't be practising on my own terms. I'd be a shadow of my former self. And I can't go out like that, Maggie. I'd rather quit while I'm ahead, than keep going while knowing that they were all shaking their heads sympathetically at how far I'd fallen."

Maggie nodded.

"Do you want me to stay?" she asked hesitantly. "I'm sure Lil would understand..."

"No," choked Jocelyn, because damn it, she was _not_ going to let her many, many personal failings stop Maggie Radcliffe from living her life. "Thank you. I'll be fine."

Maggie didn't look entirely convinced, but she squeezed Jocelyn's shoulder once and then pushed herself off the edge of the bed.

"Really, Jocelyn, if you need anything, you have my number," she reminded the barrister at the bedroom door. "Just call, and I'll be there."

Jocelyn waited until she heard Maggie close the front door, and then she curled up on her bare mattress and waited for some of the helplessness to ebb away. Finally, she managed to pull herself together enough to get up and order takeaway, which she ate using the plastic utensils provided, because even if Maggie had put all of her utensils in the kitchen, Jocelyn still didn't have any dish soap (which Maggie did, only she'd taken it with her to dinner with Lil). She unpacked enough boxes to locate her sheets, made up her bed, and lay there in the dark, staring at the indistinct bands of moonlight across her ceiling, feeling the emptiness of the house around her, unable to fall asleep for hours.

* * *

Jocelyn almost wasn't surprised when Maggie reappeared at her front door the next afternoon, and the afternoon after that. By that point, most of the house was unpacked, and Jocelyn waved goodbye to Maggie with the bittersweet knowledge that, now that Maggie's helpfulness had run its course, the journalist would likely return to the usual patterns of her own life.

So it nearly gave Jocelyn a heart attack when, several evenings later, Maggie appeared without warning in Jocelyn's living room.

"Jesus!" gasped Jocelyn, pulling off her headphones.

"Sorry, petal!" said Maggie quickly. Something that looked like a bunched-up cardigan was clutched in one of her arms, but she held out her free hand in a conciliatory gesture. "I tried knocking, but I think you couldn't hear me over your headphones, so I thought I'd look and see if you still kept your spare key under the flower pots, like you did in London, and..."

"And you broke into my house." Jocelyn crossed her arms, scowling.

"Politely, at least," Maggie pointed out, earning herself a sniff from Jocelyn. "Look, could I ask you to do me a tremendous favour?"

"It depends," Jocelyn said, half a smile turning up the corner of her mouth, now that her heart rate was finally slowing back down to normal. "What's the matter?"

"Er, how do you feel about cats?" Maggie asked.

"Cats?" repeated Jocelyn, wondering for a bewildered moment if Maggie was offering her tickets to the theatre.

Maggie responded by kneeling down and uncrumpling the cardigan to reveal a tiny mackerel tabby kitten, with fawn-gray fur and enormous blue eyes. It shook itself, then sat down in the middle of the cardigan with a mew.

"Found it just outside the door of _The Echo_ when I was locking up," said Maggie, gently stroking the kitten's head with the tips of her fingers. "And it was so little and so scared-looking that I _couldn't_ just leave it there on the pavement!"

"Well, why did you bring it here, then?" huffed Jocelyn. The kitten was still so small that its body appeared only slightly larger than its head, and its ears were almost comically large by comparison.

"Lil's got a truly terrible pet dander allergy," Maggie explained, standing. "Dogs, cats, the whole lot. I probably shouldn't even take that cardigan home until I do the laundry, she'll be up all night sneezing, if I do. Anyway, think you could look after it for at least this one evening, until I can take it to animal rescue tomorrow? You can lock it in your downstairs bathroom, for all I care; I just don't want anything to happen to it, overnight."

The kitten still seemed loath to wander from the safety of Maggie's cardigan, so it had begun licking its ruffled fur clean with a tiny pink tongue. Jocelyn sighed.

"Fine. I suppose I owe you, anyway, for all of your help these past few days."

"You certainly do, petal," grinned Maggie.

"But that does _not_ give you permission to break and enter into my house, whenever the mood strikes," Jocelyn added pointedly. "You could have _called_ , you know."

"Oh, I know," said Maggie cheerfully. "But I suspected you'd have refused outright to take in the kitten, if I'd called. Seemed like a much better strategy to put it before you, and see if you were stone-hearted enough to turn away those big eyes in person. Thanks so much, and I'll be back tomorrow morning, all right?"

The kitten, to Jocelyn's amazement, seemed to understand instinctively why Jocelyn had tightly crumpled up scraps of old pages of _The Echo_ (with silent apologies to Maggie) and left them in a baking tray in the corner of the bathroom; and, since house-training was Jocelyn's biggest concern, she didn't shut the bathroom door on the kitten. Instead, she spent the evening watching with a smile as it ambled cautiously about her living room and lapped at the saucer of milk that she'd set out. The kitten followed Jocelyn upstairs when she tried to go to sleep, then sat at the foot of her bed mewing piteously until she picked it up and placed it on the comforter, where it clambered onto Jocelyn's stomach, circled a few times, and fell asleep in a little ball of fluff.

In the morning, when Maggie arrived to take the kitten away, Jocelyn handed her the cardigan (which she'd woken up early to wash) and told Maggie that she might keep the kitten after all. Maggie grinned, and since she'd expected to spend the next hour or two taking care of the kitten anyway, instead she drove Jocelyn to the nearest pet shop. The two spent an hour laughing together as they picked out a proper litter box, and dishes and cat food, and a scratching post, and toys that ranged from colourful little fake mice to streamers on rods. Jocelyn protested when Maggie pulled out her wallet as everything was being rung up, but Maggie scoffed and said, "It's my fault that you suddenly have a cat in the first place, petal. Least I can do is set you up for it properly. Plus, you'll be dealing with all of the veterinary bills and such. And I expect you'll let me come play with it, now and again?"

"Any time," Jocelyn promised, smiling more than she could remember smiling in years, giddy about her new little companion and about the fact that Maggie now would have another reason to come by.

And Maggie certainly kept her word. A week later, she appeared at Jocelyn's door with a little bag of cat treats that she immediately handed to Jocelyn so she could reach down and scoop up the kitten and cuddle it to her nose.

"You have a name for her yet?" Maggie asked, the kitten purring in her lap as she sat at the dining room table opposite Jocelyn.

"Not really," blushed Jocelyn. She _had_ been talking to the kitten more than perhaps was entirely sane, in the sort of ridiculous voice that she usually heard adults use with small children; but when it was just the two of them, Jocelyn hadn't really needed to clarify the target of her comments with a name. "In my mind, I still just think of her as 'the little tabby cat'."

"Jocelyn," groaned Maggie, "you can't name your tabby cat 'Tabby Cat', that's what four year olds do. Or, if you must, at least make it short for a real person name, like 'Tabitha Catherine' or something..."

"That," laughed Jocelyn, "is a patently ridiculous name for a human being, let alone a cat."

But it somehow stuck, at least the first bit. A few weeks later, once the cat had grown into a gangly teenager and had gotten all of her jabs and been fixed, Maggie appeared at Jocelyn's door with a little box.

"Assuming you'll be letting her go outside now, I thought you could use this," she shrugged, as Jocelyn opened the box. Inside was a little black collar with a tag engraved on one side with the name _Tabitha_ and on the other with Jocelyn's mobile number. Jocelyn tried to scold Maggie for giving her number over to the tag engravers without her permission, but she couldn't quite work up the indignation.

"You really do think of everything, don't you?" she said instead.

"I just don't want her getting lost or inadvertently adopted by someone else," Maggie cooed, kneeling so she could stroke the cat down the length of her spine and tail. "Goodness knows I don't want her to have to stay indoors if she wants to be out, but I'd be so _sad_ if she wandered off and never came back."

The cat mewed, and Maggie planted a kiss between her ears. And Jocelyn watched them both, knowing exactly how Maggie felt.

* * *

Tabby was indisputably Jocelyn's cat. She was a dainty little thing, almost prim, and her seeming disdain for anything untoward matched Jocelyn's almost uncannily. The two spent long afternoons lounging in the sunlight in Jocelyn's living room together, Jocelyn listening to books or the radio, Tabby stretched across the seat of a chair or, on cold days, curled up in Jocelyn's lap. If she was inside the house when Jocelyn retired for the night, Tabby always slept on Jocelyn's bed, and in the mornings, she woke Jocelyn by persistently rubbing her head against the barrister's, until Jocelyn yawned and stretched and got up to feed the cat. Otherwise, she sat outside mewing loudly until Jocelyn got up to let her in and stop the racket.

"You needy little creature," Jocelyn would scold the cat lovingly, picking her up under the forelimbs so that the rest of her body dangled a comical length from Jocelyn's hands; and if Tabby started to wriggle, Jocelyn would kiss her soft, silky fur and then put her back down on the ground to wander away.

Truly, though, Jocelyn didn't know what she would do without her beloved cat. The house that had seemed so impossibly large and empty when Maggie had first helped her moved in, now felt like a true home that Jocelyn shared with one other being. Perhaps it was a bit ridiculous to have to hoover that large of an area, as frequently as Jocelyn needed to, given all of the cat hair. But it still brought a smile to Jocelyn's face to wander into a room and find Tabby unexpectedly dozing there. It wasn't quite like having another person occupying her space, but it was comfort nonetheless; and within the entire universe, Jocelyn could only imagine one being whom she'd rather have living in her house more than Tabby.

"Here you are, Jocelyn, take good care," said Sue at the bakery one morning, as she handed over a croissant in a bag and a coffee; and Jocelyn was just out the door when someone behind her said, "Not Jocelyn Knight?"

Jocelyn turned on the pavement to find a woman eyeing her shrewdly.

"Lil Ryan," said the woman, extending a hand that Jocelyn took after shuffling her coffee and croissant between her own hands.

"Oh!" said Jocelyn, trying not to betray her surprise. She wasn't sure what she'd imagined Lil to be like, but this woman was considerably more severe-looking than Jocelyn had expected any of Maggie's partners to be, although perhaps she usually had a friendlier look on her face. "Of course. It's so nice to meet you, at long last."

"Indeed," Lil replied, withdrawing her hand. "I'm surprised it _has_ taken this long. Maggie talks about you all the time, and I feel like she's been hiding you from me, for some reason. The renowned barrister with the tabby cat."

To Jocelyn's shock, she couldn't think of a single thing that Maggie had ever told her about Lil—where she was from, what she did professionally, what she liked to do in her free time. And this despite the fact that she did spend at least an hour every month catching up with Maggie about whatever was going on in both their lives. It truly did feel like Maggie was keeping her normal life with Lil separate from her evenings with Jocelyn and their cat, and Jocelyn wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.

"Well, here I am," she said with an awkward smile. "And I'll hope to see you at some point in the near future, perhaps with Maggie in tow."

"Undoubtedly." Lil raised her eyebrows. "Although I suspect you'll see her long before then. I don't think you could keep her away from that cat for long, if you tried."

Jocelyn watched Lil depart, feeling somewhat resentful and somewhat guilty. Granted, Jocelyn didn't know Lil Ryan at all, but from what she could see, it seemed entirely unfair that someone like _that_ had secured the affections of Maggie Radcliffe, who (in Jocelyn's opinion) could have anyone she wanted. At the same time, Lil clearly knew that Jocelyn and Tabby occupied a place in Maggie's world that Lil would never be able to fill, for any number of reasons; and Jocelyn guarded this knowledge with just a dash of unease mixed into her secret delight.

For even if Tabby was indisputably Jocelyn's, she somehow remained very much Maggie's cat, as well. The journalist appeared at Jocelyn's door every few weeks with some new cat toy or treat; and she'd spend the next hour sitting on the floor of Jocelyn's living room, playing with Tabby; or, if the cat wasn't in the mood to play, lazily stroking her with one hand and enjoying a glass of wine with the other. Either way, it meant that Maggie continued to regularly pop up in Jocelyn's life for a spontaneous hour at a time, and if Jocelyn hadn't adored Tabby enough on her own, this made the barrister appreciate the cat somehow even more.

"What's that you're looking at?" Jocelyn asked Tabby one night, noticing how the cat had stationed herself on the window sill and was staring out into the night very intently. She placed a hand on Tabby's back and peered out the window with her, and between the darkness and the blind spot in the middle of her vision, it took Jocelyn a moment to realise that Maggie was standing outside, waving at them both. Tabby jumped off the window sill and padded over to the door alongside Jocelyn, her tail held expectantly high.

"Hello, beautiful!" cooed Maggie as soon as Jocelyn opened the door, and she picked up Tabby and kissed the tip of her nose. "I am so _excited_ to spend an entire week with you soon, while your mummy's off on holiday in Paris..."

"Goodness, you're not planning to bring her into the newsroom with you, are you?" laughed Jocelyn.

"Please," said Maggie, rolling her eyes, "with Olly Stevens back on my payroll now, it's already like herding cats at _The Echo_ , all day, every day. Anyway, just wanted to drop these off, before I completely forgot."

She passed a plastic bag to Jocelyn without unhanding Tabby, and Jocelyn pulled out a set of lint rollers.

"And here I thought you were just going to try to keep her hair off your clothes more diligently," she teased Maggie, who was holding Tabby to her chest and making no effort whatsoever to stay cat hair-free.

"Well, that's always the _intention_ ," said Maggie, nuzzling her nose into Tabby's fur. "But you _know_ how irresistible she is, when she turns those big eyes on you; I can't stop myself from picking her up and kissing her all over her gorgeous face. And then, if you sit down for a minute and she just _happens_ to leap onto your lap, you simply can't bring yourself to disturb her for the next half hour while she sheds hair all over your trousers..."

Jocelyn shook her head, bemused, and when Maggie had finally finished cuddling the cat, she complied with Maggie's request to go over once more how much food Tabby was supposed to get, and when, and where everything cat-related in Jocelyn's house was. Maggie, ever the journalist, took detailed notes on everything in a little notebook, nodding seriously. When Jocelyn mentioned that the scratching post was currently up in her bedroom, Maggie jotted this down with as much equanimity as anything, apparently completely at ease with the notion of venturing into Jocelyn's bedroom to fetch cat toys while Jocelyn wasn't even at home.

"Thanks for the recap, petal," she said at long last, unwrapping one of the lint rollers. "And have a brilliant time in Paris, needless to say—so glad you're taking full advantage of being officially retired! And I'll see _you_ very soon, Miss Tabitha," she added to Tabby, who had wandered over to the door to say goodbye to Maggie. "You two really are adorable together, by the way."

"What do you mean?" laughed Jocelyn, who had been thinking the exact same thing about Maggie and the cat.

"Well, when I saw you through the window earlier," Maggie explained, trying to roll as much cat hair as possible off her arms and chest, and mostly succeeding. "You know how they say that people grow to look like their pets? The two of you looked delightfully alike, peering out at me like you were."

The journalist left with a wink, and Jocelyn spent the rest of the evening in bed with Tabby curled up and purring on her chest, contemplating the fact that Maggie always called Tabby 'beautiful' whenever she saw her.

* * *

Years later, Jocelyn would wonder if it was a premonition of sorts that woke her up so completely and so early that morning. She had just finished making herself tea and was listening for Tabby's typical mewing to begin when instead she heard a knock on her door.

"Er, Ms Knight?" It was Danny Latimer, her newspaper boy, who no doubt had seen that her light was on and was here asking if he could use the loo or get a glass of water.

"Good morning, Danny," replied Jocelyn, glad that she'd bothered getting dressed right after waking up. "Is everything all right?"

"It's your cat," said Danny, his face miserable.

And Jocelyn thought her heart might have stopped, because Danny Latimer _knew_ Tabby. Any number of mornings, Jocelyn had caught sight from her window of Tabby nuzzling her head against Danny's leg as he approached the house, of the newspaper boy taking a moment to kneel down and pet her a bit, before continuing on his route. She followed Danny out to the side of the road, where the little body of her cat was sprawled, looking almost as if she were asleep, only her limbs were too stiff and now-dried blood stained her nose.

Jocelyn couldn't speak, let alone move, so she stood there in absolute silence as she waited for her mind to wrap itself fully around the situation. Danny Latimer waited patiently with her, and finally he unrolled one of his newspapers and used it to gently wrap up Tabby's rigid body, which he carried out of the road and back to Jocelyn's house. He lay several layers of newspaper on her dining room table, and then carefully set the cat's body on top, covering it with a final page.

"I'm really sorry," he said, and he left a complete newspaper just inside the door on his way out.

Jocelyn sat there for what felt like hours, numb, staring at the little newspaper-covered body on her table. Finally, she picked up her phone and called Maggie.

"Maggie, please, if you can, please stop by," she managed, before she hung up on Maggie's voicemail and retreated upstairs to curl up on her bed.

An hour or so later by the clock—although it felt like several centuries later to Jocelyn—Maggie knocked on the door. Jocelyn knew who it must be, but she somehow couldn't manage to make her limbs function, and so she waited until Maggie eventually let herself in and, after peering into various other rooms, finally discovered Jocelyn upstairs.

"Jocelyn?" she asked urgently, sitting down on the bed's edge and putting a hand on Jocelyn's shoulder. "Petal, are you all right? Please, say something to me."

Jocelyn forced herself to sit up and turn to face Maggie, aware that she must look like a complete wreck.

"I'm fine," she rasped.

Maggie clearly knew that Jocelyn wasn't, but she nodded briskly.

"Is it your mum?" she asked cautiously. "If there's anything that I can do..."

Jocelyn shook her head, then pushed herself off the bed and led Maggie downstairs. Either the journalist had missed the untidy layers of newspapers on the dining room table in her search for Jocelyn, or she had been too polite to pry. But when Jocelyn gestured to the mess, Maggie carefully peeled apart the layers, revealing the pitiful little corpse inside.

"Oh," gasped Maggie, her hand flying to her mouth, and she quickly dropped the top newspaper page back in place. "Oh, my poor, sweet, lovely little beauty."

Witnessing Maggie's grief triggered the tears that Jocelyn hadn't yet shed, and she began quietly crying, her arms wrapped around herself. Maggie watched her from across the room for a moment, then steered Jocelyn gently to a chair and knelt down to comfort the inconsolable barrister.

"I'm so sorry," Jocelyn sobbed, holding the journalist close, "I'm so sorry, Maggie..."

"Please, don't apologise, Jocelyn," sighed Maggie, her own voice heavy with tears.

And Jocelyn tightened her embrace a bit more, because this was a goodbye for the two of them, in a sense—a farewell to the Maggie who, with or without permission, had cheerfully invaded Jocelyn's space on behalf of the cat that was also hers, whose devotion to Tabby had made her a comforting and reliable fixture of Jocelyn's life back in Broadchurch. Now they would become nothing more than polite friends again, bound only by appropriate affection and a few vivid memories. The little corner of Maggie's heart that had belonged entirely to Tabby—and, by extension, to Jocelyn—would revert back to Lil. And Jocelyn would be as alone as ever, without Maggie mischievously strewing catnip across the living room floor, without even their beloved cat asleep on her pillow as a constant reminder of what they shared.

"I just loved her so much," Jocelyn whispered. By which she meant that she had loved Tabby not only for being the most perfect cat imaginable, but because she was what connected Jocelyn to Maggie. By which Jocelyn meant that she still loved Maggie too much to bear; but she could never tell Maggie this, because Maggie had chosen Lil, and because Jocelyn still wasn't strong enough to be brave for Maggie.

"So did I," Maggie replied, one of her hands stroking Jocelyn's hair softly and soothingly.

In the end, it was Maggie who drove Tabby's little body down to the vet's, while Jocelyn listlessly wandered about her house, trying to make sense of her life moving forward. When Maggie reappeared several days later with a box of ashes, the two women walked to the edge of the cliffs and scattered the ashes into the air, and Maggie wrapped an arm around Jocelyn's shoulders again as she quietly cried.

"Thank you, Maggie," Jocelyn sniffled finally. "For being here with me, through all of this."

"I told you that I'd be there if you called, didn't I?" Maggie reminded her. She smiled sadly out at the waves. "God, I'll miss her."

Jocelyn nodded, and then she added, "I'll miss you, too."

"Well, I'm certainly not going anywhere," said Maggie with a soft laugh. "Really, just call anytime you want me to come over. Someone needs to appreciate the view from your house, after all."

And Jocelyn smiled, even though she knew that Maggie meant the view from the living room windows, not the magnificent view from the bedroom that was now designated as off-limits, now that unpacking was done, now that their cat was gone, now that all immediate crises had passed.

"You should go home," she said finally. "Lil is probably wondering where you are."

And Maggie nodded, but before she left, she let her lips gently brush against Jocelyn's cheek, and whispered, "Take care of yourself, Jocelyn."

But Jocelyn didn't call Maggie, not because she didn't desperately miss the journalist's warmth and laughter, but because surely Maggie wouldn't want to come back to her place and feel so acutely the loss that they had recently suffered. She bore the pain of Tabby's absence alone, washed her pillow case free of cat hair, picked up all of the cat toys that she stumbled across and put them in the rubbish with the litter box and scratching post. And, after enough days of loneliness and sorrow, the ache finally began to lessen, just a little. Jocelyn took long walks along the beaches at the base of the cliffs, imagining that Tabby's ashes now formed an integral part of the landscape, that something eternal continued of the cat who had symbolised the life that she and Maggie might have had. Even if those three happy years of Jocelyn's life now were over, she would always have her memories, and perhaps that somehow would be enough.

Several months later, Jocelyn woke up one bright July morning to find that, unusually, her newspaper wasn't waiting for her on her doorstep; and this seemed as good a reason as any to finally phone Maggie.

"I'd first like to make a complaint that my paper wasn't delivered," she joked. "I hope that all is well over at _The Echo_? Honestly, though, let me know if you're free to come over some evening. I've missed hearing your voice."

For a moment, Jocelyn considered being magnanimous and inviting Lil along, too, but instead she hung up and waited for Maggie to call her back. Only Maggie didn't, and after several hours of impatience, Jocelyn turned on the news and sat back in horror as she realised that the entire community had suddenly been hit with a loss infinitely more staggering and inconceivable than the private one that she and Maggie had just endured. Jocelyn thought about how carefully Danny Latimer had wrapped Tabby up in one of Maggie's newspapers, about how genuinely concerned he had seemed about Jocelyn's grief. It seemed impossible that now his own little body lay windswept on the shore below one of the cliffs.

But, at the end of yet another day of utter disbelief, as the sun was setting outside and Jocelyn was washing dishes after dinner, she heard the key turn in her front door, and there was Maggie, looking exhausted and heartbroken. She sat down in Jocelyn's living room, and when Jocelyn entered, she said, "I know you said you missed hearing my voice, petal, but I've been talking all day. Would you be offended by silence?"

Jocelyn shook her head and brought Maggie a glass of wine. The two sat in the golden sunset, Maggie watching the light, Jocelyn quietly appreciating the space that Maggie once more took up in her world. Speech was not important; after all, Tabby had never said a single word to Jocelyn, and yet her existence had filled Jocelyn's life with more meaning than she ever could have imagined. Even if Maggie would soon have to put down her wine glass and leave and return home to Lil, it was enough for Jocelyn that Maggie had chosen to spend this emotional evening here with her, as silently as she needed to spend it, without any reason other than that she wanted to be there.

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, okay, since this story ended up being so painful, here, have a smutty, fluffy little [coda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692870) to wrap up my thoughts about Maggie's balancing her life between Jocelyn and Lil.


End file.
